Ardent
by Just Awesome Like That
Summary: I never knew why or how I came to be. I didn't even know my name. But I knew who I was. And I am Ardent. (Warnings: OCs, swearing, mild grammatical errors as I've no beta. No pairings as of yet. Jack doesn't come in for a while, so don't get your hopes up. I do not own RotG or any of the characters that go along with it. I do own the concept of Ardent, however.)
1. Born

The first thing I know is suffocation.

And with this, I wake with a gasp, lungs screaming as I instinctively sit up and instantly regret it.

The action causes the crown of my forehead to burst into pain, and I fall back with a curse.

My hands go up automatically to clutch at the area of impact, and I feel a roughness brush my elbows and fingers as I do.

The pain fades relatively quickly, but I realized the hit dazed me.

Dizzily, the grip on my head loosens and the hands reach out to explore what they brushed.

An inexplicably rough surface greets them, harsh and flaky and —

My hands snap back, pain and heat plucking at multiple fingers; sliver-y.

_Wood_, my mind supplies.

Warily, my exploration continues, feeling out the surface above me.

_Am I under something?_ I wonder distantly.

As my hands continue to spread, I realize whatever I'm under has corners,meeting at the surface above me and connecting to…sides of the same material.

A flicker of panic brushes my mind, and I instinctively push at the roughness.

It doesn't budge.

The flicker turns to a spark, and when I shove, ignites.

My breath quickens, sharp and broken by bubbles of anxiety in my chest and throat.

I shove and push, panic scratching my esophagus and the quietest of keens building in my throat.

Finally I start to scratch, applying an impossible amount of pressure to the wood, quickly wearing down my nails to the beds, panic and instinct and fear, such fear, turning the keens to sobs.

But still I didn't stop, even when I felt blood well at my finger tips.

I don't stop, not even when I see crimson start to smear on the separate slats of wood.

No, I only stop when I realize I can see the smears and slats, when before the darkness around me had been black as pitch and heavy as stones.

Confusion joined the panic and fear, brewing a completely unhelpful disorientation.

My palms turned, eyes immediately disregarding the bloody fingertips in favor of the impossibility burning at the center of my hands.

Flames.

Dim, and only slightly warm, but _flames._

_In my hands_.

The panic quickly turned to absolute, instinctual terror.

A scream burst from my throat, and I shoved my hands away, pushing,pushing, wanting it away, and the flames complied, bursting forth and slamming against the wood slats above me.

The dry slats instantly blackened, and with nothing left to burn, the fire licked its way across her ceiling of fuel, devouring all, until it the heat reached my face and I pulled back my hands with a yelp.

Now the entirety of my space — apparently entirely made of wood — was suddenly ablaze.

Oranges, yellows, and reds surrounded me on all sides, even beneath me, and on me as well.

The entire time, screams had been ripping themselves from my throat and now it heaved and choked with the exertion, sealing itself off even as I felt myself gag with horror and desperation.

Through the flames, I banged at my wooden ceiling, distantly registering the sudden _lack of sting_ the flames brought me, and more importantly registering the ominous _creak_ that rose over the crackle of flames.

With a bare second to through my arms up over my head, the ceiling caved in and blackness descended once more.

Due respects to DollDivine for the image of Ardent.


	2. Breathe

The cool silence of the mid-winter morning was broken by what could only be described as an explosion.

It was loud, and it was hot and it scared off every living thing within a hundred yard radius.

Birds took flight, entire herds of deer burst into motion; even the rodents and insects scurried into their homes, under the honest, instinctual impression that their lives depended on it.

At the epicenter, the point where all fled from, a great plume of dazzling reds, shimmering oranges, and dancing golds and yellows leaps into the dawn air from a great clearing in the surrounding forest, stark against the dark browns and dusting of snow that made said forest appear to be frozen in time. It crackled and crowed into the sky, almost a hundred feet, soaring and singing with the joy of freedom.

And as quickly as it had appeared, the flame vanished.

Slowly, sound returned to the forest, yet the clearing remained silent a few minutes more.

Then, that quiet was broken too.

Shattered, by a gasping, sobbing breath that had barely been taken before it transformed, morphed darkly into a eardrum-bursting scream.

..oo00O00oo..

When the blackness had descended, every scrap of rational thought — which had already been shredded and torn by the razor sharp talons of fear — disappeared right along with my sight.

The heavy, dusty but otherwise tasteless sensation of what could only be dirty filled my mouth and I gagged, thrashing about to no avail. The weight of it just forced the earth back in, and pressed down of every single on of my limbs and forcing the air from my lungs.

Quickly finding myself lightheaded, the next few minutes were like a blur. Eyes instinctively wanting to screw shut against the dirt, only flashes of sight came to me.

Under foreign guidance, hands and fingers and feet felt for purchase through the dirt, which came away loose.

My lungs swiftly began to burn, pleading for oxygen, but I knew enough to keep my mouth sealed shut.

I didn't know when I'd be able to breathe again, but I knew I would.

I didn't know where up was, but I knew if I kept digging I'd find it.

I didn't know what I'd do once I reached the surface, but I knew I would.

…_wouldn't I?_

As the earth seemed to press in on all sides, I began to doubt whether or not I could just _know_.

My lungs, once pleading, began to scream, and the doubts cut off, and the hopes were no better along.

Fingers formed talons, and clawed their way through my earthen cage.

Lungs screeched within me, and my eyes and mouth flew open of their own accord.

Instantly, the dreadfully familiar taste of dust and earth crowded its way past my lips, coating my teeth and tongue and trying to find its way down my throat.

The sensation made me gag, but nothing would dislodge the earth.

Vision granted me little, just a reaffirmation that all around me was dark and unforgiving and heavy.

Or was it?

A spot of light caught my eye as one hand pulled back from where both had constantly been working upwards.

A desperate, almost painful hope, wild and uncontrollable, flared within me and, relief that _there was an up, there was an escape_ making my arms want to go weak.

But I couldn't let them, not now, not when I was_ so close_.

Despite the gagging and pressure around me, I could _see_, and suddenly there was nothing better.

My hand broke the surface and desperation made every move jerky, but it didn't matter, didn't matter because I was _free_.

Flames burst from my palms once more, a great plume of color that sang with joy because I was _finally free_ and —

—_Still couldn't breathe_.

I gasped and gagged and choked and finally bent double from where I'd pulled myself no more than a few feet above the dirty and felt my throat clear itself with a single great, but dry, heave.

Air worked itself in and that triggered my lungs to start heaving huge, desperate sucks of breath, heaving my chest.

Quickly following the gasps for breath was a piercing scream of pure emotion — fear, panic and relief — which finally seemed to banish the emotions.

Still reeling from the lack of oxygen, I heaved my lower half from the earth and rolled heavily away.

I lay there a moment, still panting and feeling a bit drained and…_heat_ flickering against my skin.

Bleary to the verge of blind, I glanced down at myself and saw the vaguest outlines of tattered, charred clothes and dancing lights.

_Fire_, I thought dully. Then, when the realization registered I thought more urgently, **_Fire_**. Finally, my lungs and throat and lips got their act together enough to form something other than a scream. Sort of.

_"I'm on fire!"_


	3. Fall

Almond eyes.

They were the most prominent, I decided.

Large and round, but somehow still the same shape as the name of the color.

Surrounded by a plain of smooth, unmarked and tanned skin, which in turn was surrounded by a frame of dark hair.

That hair reached past my waist and each and every strand, I'd discovered - with no small amount of _screaming panic_, - ended with the tiniest, flickering flame.

After my initial panic - an impressive show of rolling about, attempting to pat away the flames, even going so far as to submerge myself in a nearby pond before realizing the _water _hurt more than the flames did - I'd discovered that even though I could feel their heat, I suffered no burns.

Even the hair wasn't even charred.

Now I knelt by the side of the very pond that had seared my skin, panic and urgency have long since drained away.

Instead, wonder filled those almond eyes, even as I traced them with my own hand.

I felt...lost, but knew exactly where I was.

I was in the overgrown yard of some ancient building, which had long since fallen to absolute rubble, in a forest dusted with the thinnest layer of snow. Coniferous trees surrounded the clearing of grass and low bushes. The pond was natural.

I felt calm, but wondered whether or not that was just exhaustion coming on.

I felt sad, when I looked around the clearing, especially at the suspiciously purposefully placed stones, even if I didn't know what they were.

Abandoning the pond, I made my way back to where I had first...risen? Definitely awoke, but...

I discarded the thought, pausing at the nub of stone; for that's all it was, a nub, element worn and featureless.

The sadness was there, but dull, more a feeling of distant regret.

When I turned towards the sweep of black that had caught my eye when I first left the pond, draped over a nub just slightly larger than my own, however, the sadness exploded, bloomed and swept over me, a deep searing, poisonous spear of grief and loneliness that pierced my throat and deflated my lungs, until it felt as though the weight of the earth above me had never left.

And I didn't know _why._

After that, I fled, not even realizing I had snatched the black swath into my grasp before I did.

Then, after what could've been an hour of running but somehow had felt like a split second of absolute stillness, I felt my legs give out beneath me and found myself hitting the ground hard.

I felt a burning that might have been tears at my eyes, but when I reached up my face was dry.

I looked down, suddenly aware that the snow beneath me had not only melted, but vanished completely. Instead, I lay on my side in a perfect circle of dry grass, the black cloth still clutched in my grip.

It registered dimly that not only was the cloth still mostly whole, charred a bit on the side that had been facing where I had awakened, but it seemed to have taken some of my flames in. When I stretched what might've been the shoulders across my fingers, they glowed.

Not with a flame from my own hands, but with a coal-like light that seemed to be sewn into the very fabric.

The burning at my eyes returned, and even though my cheeks were dry, now I knew they were tears, and I let them come.

I clutched the fabric to my chest and let them come, until I found myself sobbing into the cloth.

I let them come, until my throat, dry already, choked on the sobs and I found myself gagging.

I let them come, and I didn't know why.


	4. Watch

With dainty steps I traversed the forest floor, already used to the fact that the snow beneath my feet melted and vanished before I even had a chance to feel it.

My cloak brushed along the ground as I walked, noticeably longer than I was tall, but stayed dry by the same feat I did, heat and light woven into the fabric.

Faster than was probably normal, I quickly began to think of the flames as a part of me and, with no preset destination in mind, I began to experiment with them.

I quickly found that my mindset was one of almost constant curiosity, that could flare up at any given time and only settled with immediate and complete satiation.

Such as when I'd first gathered myself from where I'd fallen, wrapping the cloak around her shoulders and clasping it in place. The first spark was a slight pattern her fingers had slid over on the clasp itself, which turned out to be an inverted triangle. But that had been short lived and quickly satisfied.

The first real flare of my curiosity, I was still chasing.

It had come silently, and vanished just as fast. A blur of blue and white that flew past her, banking sharply to the right before it swept up, above the treetops and disappeared.

Cloak still wafting in the unnaturally chilly breeze it created, I searched the canopy. But whatever it was, it was was gone.

Nonetheless, curiosity peaked, I followed the direction this new thing had been headed, tightening my cloak.

When I had first awoken, the brief glimpse of my clothes I had gotten had shown they might've been white. When I'd dug myself up, or maybe when the flames had engulfed me, the cloth had been charred and stained until it was almost black.

Even my dip in the pond hadn't cleaned it properly.

Now it was a dark, sooty gray. The clothes themselves resembled a dress, which might have reached my ankles or even the ground originally, but now brushed the tops of my calves, tied loosely at the waist with a loop of dusty, golden twine.

There had been sleeves, but I'd ripped them off in a fit of frustration when I'd had to keep rolling them up.

My trek through the forest continued, leaving a trail of perfectly dry foot prints in my wake.

The forest itself had sparked a fair amount of curiosity on it's own.

The rows upon rows of trees held the strangest things: brown beasts - some with stalks growing up from the tops of their heads that looked like small and leafless trees - and multiple gray and white little creatures, with long ears and short bobs on their hinds that twitched.

When I tried to get near one, however, it's ears had perked up and it's head whipped towards me.

Tiny eyes, black as beads and stark against it's snowy pelt, met my almond gaze.

Fascinated, I reached out, barely feeling the bite of the cold as the wind picked up slightly.

The creature was still, perfectly still; even the bob on it's hind was utterly motionless.

There was a crack behind me, and with a twitch of one long ear it was gone, disappearing into the brush with but two bounds.

Disappointed but not disheartened, I straightened, orientating myself once more and starting off.

Soon the trees began to grow farther apart, the brush growing shorter and shorter until it disappeared. Without feeling the rise of it, I found the crest of a hill, and stood at it for a moment in what I could only describe as awe.

Wooden houses, reaching three and four stories into the air. Cobblestone streets already bustling with life - people, children, carts and horses.

And the _life_!

Parents and older siblings chasing about wayward younglings, who cried out in jovial surprise when they were scooped into a loving embrace. Grown-ups haggling over cloth-draped counters for miscellaneous items - meats, beads, wooden crafts - or hauling about baskets and buckets.

Everyone went about their daily life, and the entire village was filled with a warm and homely feeling, which snuck beneath the cloth of my cloak and warmed my limbs as though I stood by an actual fire.

A tangible happiness, a palpable sense of...of _home._

As though a fire had been lit beneath my feet - no pun intended, - I felt myself bouncing on my toes, wanting _so much _to be down _there_, suddenly.

_Why wait?_ I asked myself.

So I didn't.


	5. Race

It took longer than I though it would to reach the village, for by the time I was exploring it's streets, the sun had fallen below the ring of towering hills that circled the settlement and the sky had fallen dark.

But did that stop the townsfolk? No.

If anything, it _livened them._

Though there fewer small children than before, those that had been out of the streets during the day - afternoon, I realized - had returned or ventured out, the the snow-dusted streets were practically packed with people.

A festive spirit filled the air, joyful, carefree and merry.

And it was _infectious._

All the way down that first hill and well into town, I found myself grinning like a fool even as I dodged passerby after passerby, each bustling about to the point of what I might've dubbed blindness as they went about the night.

After a narrow miss of almost being run over by a horse-drawn cart, I settled against the brick of a building, keeping my hood up and hair tucked away, unconsciously wary of letting the townsfolk catch sight of my flames - no one else had them.

Despite the flicker of something being amiss the observation brought, the jovial air everyone carried about settled into and onto me like a great blanket.

There was even music in the air.

The village itself was quaint; as I said, it was surrounded by a crest of hills, nestled into the bowl-like valley in the fashion of a young child to its mother's bosom. Each street was lit by hung lanterns that flickered wildly but staunchly refused to go out.

At the center of the village, a crossroad of the four major dirt passageways, was a towering water fountain, frozen by some miracle to appear as though locked in time, great spouts of water chilled solid midair. Two tiny children slid and slipped about on the bottom level, giggling madly under the watchful gaze of their parents.

_I could stay here, _I thought. _Nothing would make me happier right now._

A group of children caught my eye as they came my way, perhaps six of them of varying ages. At the back of the pack was a tiny girl of maybe a healthy six, though she may have been a skinny eight, with dark pigtails and large, gray eyes.

She called out to her companions as they raced by me, complaining they were leaving her behind. When she paused for breath not two steps from me, I stepped in front of her to get her attention.

"Hello, little one," I cooed gently, leaning down to level with her in height. Gray eyes stared blankly at me, almost through me, but I figured she was just trying to look around me, reluctant to lose sight of her friends. "I'll be swift," I assured her. "I was just wondering if you could tell me where I a -"

"_Guys!" _the girl whined loudly, right past my ear, loud enough to make me cringe. "Wait up!"

"Excuse me -!" I started but the girl straitened suddenly, launching herself forward once more. Surprised, I leaned back, overbalancing as I'd resorted to perching on the balls of my feet to reach eye level. Even though I threw an arm up on instinct, ready to catch it, the impact I braced for never came.

Instead, impossible as it seemed, the girl seemed to _pass through me_.

In her wake, a frigid cold, spine-tingling and breath-stealing and _bloody painful_, spread throughout my entire body, the coldest thing I'd ever felt, with out the searing pain that the water of the pond had brought me. No, this was cold, just cold, but cold enough to freeze my breath in my lungs, the thoughts in my mind, and the beat of my heart for a bare second.

It dissipated, but didn't disappear entirely, my breath and thoughts and heartbeat returning with a jolt of shocked restart.

My next breath came in a disbelieving shudder.

I scrambled to turn around, watching the girl leave, watching her long enough to see a boy a year or two older in the group tug shyly at one of her pigtails.

_If it's not her, _I thought with dread, _then it must be...me._

Instantly, not wanting to believe it, I jolted up, racing to a store vender, who shouted into the night of cheap prices and fine goods.

"Please, sir -" I gasped, reaching out, only to have my hand pass straight through his arm. The icy cold bit at the appendage and it snatched back of its own accord, disappearing beneath my cloak.

_No_, my mind denied dazedly.

I dashed to another towns person, not daring to reach out this time, but even then, she turned and walked right through me without batting so much as an eyelash.

The cold lanced through my body and my knees went weak.

I hit the ground with a gasp, cloak pooling below me and hood falling over my peripheral vision. Sightless almond eyes stared at the cobblestone disbelievingly, chin shaking minutely in stubborn denial.

"No, no, no," I breathed quietly, forcing myself up.

Turning to an elderly man, I tossed my hood back, desperately hoping the flurry of movement or flicker of light would catch his eye, but no, he continued to chat genially with a younger woman.

A sob choked my throat, the lightness of the infectious joy draining from my body entirely, leaving me feeling heavier and colder than ever.

I whirled on the spot, desperation and panic warring in my mind.

"Please," I begged no one, begged _anyone, begged __**everyone**_.

My words were lost as I turned and turned until I was dizzy, desperate for someone to spot the movement and glance my way.

No one did.

Not any -

_Him._

My eyes shot back to someone I over looked.

Someone stalk still in the crowd, blending perfectly yet obvious as the sky was blue.

Someone bearing the colors of blue and white, clear across the square, facing me.

And _staring at me._

With a silent cry, I burst into movement, ducking and dodging through the throng of townspeople both out of habit and out of desperate desire _not _to feel that biting cold ever again.

When I searched again, the person was farther away, and no longer facing me.

Not wanting to face the chance that it was a fluke, I surged after him.

What might've been a shoving pursuit through the crowd became a disorienting chase that left parts of me numb with constant cold as I couldn't avoid brushing against one person or another.

I followed them through the streets, in the direction that felt like north, out of town and back into the streets, barely noticing the inclination the terrain began to gain.

Through the woods I caught sight of the person again, walking faster but stumbling as though they wanted to turn back.

The glimpses of the person told me little, but enough. For starters, it was a boy or man, bearing a dark blue cloak and stark, snowy white skin and hair, toting what looked like a Shepard's crook in his right hand as he jogged ahead.

My pace kicked up, until I raced forth, almost desperate to catch up. My gaze was trained solidly forward, constantly searching for my next glimpse of blue or white.

That was probably why I didn't notice the trees thinning once more.

Or the snow getting thicker.

Or the ground become distinctly rocky.

Not until it was too late, anyways.

The tree cover broke at the same time as the ground gave way, giving me a dazzling glimpse of a stretching plain of darkness, blending seamlessly into the night sky, in which hung the moon, round and full and bright and breathtaking before I finally realized the ground was no longer beneath my feet.

With a choked gasp, I pitched forward, desperately trying to find my balance where none could be sought, mind shocked into silence as a weightless feeling gripped me. The gasp turned to a scream as the sense of weightlessness vanished, replaced by the heavy tug of merciless gravity.

I fell, screaming, from the crest of the cliff, spinning about, screwing my eyes shut as the roar of the wind over powered my sense of hearing.

I was falling, but felt a sweep of heat bloom forth from my chest.

I was falling, but then I wasn't.


	6. Dim

Darkness.

That's the first thing I noticed when I wasn't falling anymore.

It was dark, and I was scared.

Very suddenly and oppressively and by foreign hand almost, I was _terrified._

I sat bolt upright from where I'd landed, somehow appearing midair then crashing to the ground before I could register much of anything.

Looking around, I realized I was sitting on a staircase, which might've been why my landing hurt so much. The stone was gray, darker than the tattered remains of my dress.

Rising, I found myself surrounded by it, by gray walls and gray staircases and -

Where those stalactites?

"Whoa," I breathed, my breath clouding in the air and bringing attention for the first time just how cold wherever I'd ended up was.

Gripping my cloak tighter, but not bothering with the hood - the light was dim and gray, like everything else, and the flickering light of my flames brought not only a brighter glow, but a bit of color as well.

Needless to say, my curiosity was sparked.

Taking the last few stairs carefully, I found what seemed to be a bridge, stretching from one gray stone wall to another and over a _long _fall down. Not one I wanted to take, obviously.

Falling was so thirty seconds ago.

Besides the _grayness _of it all, wherever I was seemed to be pretty cool - no pun intended.

You know, once you got past the cages hanging from the ceiling.

And even those were a little cool, in a cage-y way. Iron, spiked, creepily empty as they swayed hauntingly gentle in the softest, wafting breeze.

Okay, maybe cool wasn't quite the word I should use.

But I digress.

The cold bit at my feet, and I tried to pump heat down to them without summoning the actual flames. Limited success, a few bricks scorched in odd patterns, but hey - practice makes perfect.

I glanced around, losing interest in the cages, and realized the walls - which I'd thought were cave-like in design - weren't as plain as I'd thought.

Curved, layered, pillared with the strangest, dark elegance - well, for walls, they were pretty impressive.

It was almost as though I bore witness to a grand castle, dark and abandoned, but enchanting and awesome.

The cages were still creepy though.

Shivering, I turned around in place and caught a flash of color.

It was a brighter, but almost faded purple - a mural of some sort that I could recognize from the distance. Three staircases and a bridge - and not to complain, _but how big was this place? _- later and I got a better look.

I squinted in the darkness, making out a strange swirl of black on faded purple-gray but little more.

I chided myself internally for not thinking of it right away.

A plume of flame three feet in height bloomed from my outstretched palm before I got it back under control. I brought my gaze back to the mural, and noticed it cut off abruptly, almost like a...corner.

A huff of breath in understanding escaped me, fogging the air as I stepped back and let the flame grow larger.

"Oh," I sighed, realizing the painting was much larger than I'd originally thought.

It took up the entire wall, but its depictions were cracked, faded and shadowed.

Nonetheless, I could make out separate panes almost, broken in jagged edges by a border of what may have been horse heads or black-robed figures bent double.

One showed droopy-eyed children, another a man tossing in his bed, a third four figures with upraised hands, and a fifth a tiny village shrouded in what looked like black lightning.

In almost every pane, however, was a figure, dark as the lightning with spindly limbs and spiky hair, surrounded by demonic figures black a pitch in color, which might've been horses or even wolves.

In the center, the figure stood with outstretched palms and broad shoulders, draped in a dark robe. His face appeared to be shrouded in darkness, his head tipped down.

Upon closer inspection,however - difficult but not impossible from below, - it wasn't shrouded, but_ scorched_ into a featureless, black stain on the stone.

"_Who are you?"_

The words, hissed from the darkness, came from everywhere - and nowhere, screaming and whispering - and sent a chill down my spine, just as bad as the feeling of being passed through.

I spun away from the painting and spotted a dark figure, cloak flaring and flame blazing up in my lack of concentration.

The speaker hissed, and the figure vanished.

"_What are you doing here?"_

I felt my throat close, realizing whoever it was could _see me._

"You - you can see me?" I gasped aloud, searching the darkness. It hit me suddenly that they'd flinched from the light of my flame, and I extinguished it.

There was a pause, as though they didn't quite understand the question. Then,

"_Answer my question, child."_

Indignation rose over the desperate spark of hope. "Show yourself first, creep!" I responded.

A moment of silence passed, and a sudden doubt sparked within me - _have I angered them? Will they leave?!_

Careless in my desperation - _Please, don't leave me alone again!_ - I surged forward, an urgent apology on my lips that made it no further before _he _stepped from the darkness.

It was _him_, the man in the painting - the same slicked-back hair that spiked behind his head like a dark, thorny crown, the same dark robe that fell all the way to the floor and seemed almost to be a part of him, blending seamlessly into his arms and chest.

And his _skin!_

Dark gray, like the walls and the mural and the light - a gray that sucked in everything, be it light or hope or bravery, and left only _fear._

The fear - the terror that had blossomed so darkly in me upon my arrival and clung to me this entire time, refusing to be completely banished even by the familiarity of my cloak or the warmth of my flames - rose up within me.

His gaze was disdainful and the color of gold, but all warmth the color should have held was frosted away by hate and age and an inner darkness, inner _deadness_.

Upon meeting it, the terror exploded within me and my breath turned traitor as heat bloomed within me.

And for the second time that day, I was simply no longer there.


End file.
